Wednesday 24 August 2005 18.53 EDT
First published on Wednesday 24 August 2005 18.53 EDT

It's August 1955, and the first night of the English-language premiere of Waiting for Godot. We're in the Arts Theatre, London. Two raggedy figures in bowler hats are at the corner of the stage. The sadder of the two is absolute.

"Nobody comes. Nobody goes. It's awful."

At this point a loud, very English, voice intervenes from the stalls: "Hear! Hear!" And clearly some of the audience agree. The next few moments of the play are drowned in cheers and louder counter-cheers. The Godot controversy has begun.

Contrast this with August 2005. At the Theatre Royal, Bath, it's the first preview of a new production of Waiting for Godot, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary. The performance has not yet started, and the house is packed. A middle-aged lady with a penetrating voice is insisting: "Of course, we all absolutely adored doing it for A-levels ..."

The play begins and at first is heard in reverential silence - as befits an A-level title. The audience knows it is witnessing a modern classic, a turning point in world drama, written by a Nobel prize-winning master. They may also remember that this play topped the list in the vote for the 100 best plays at the National Theatre. It is not to be trifled with.

On this evening, 50 years after Godot's premiere, the audience initially brings to the performance too much respect, too much awe. Beckett tries to avoid this by consistently flicking his audience with provocative insults. "I've been better entertained," says one tramp.

"Charming evening we're having," says the other.

"And it's not over yet," comes the reply.

Gradually the Bath audience dissolves: laughter is everywhere and intellectual solemnity vanishes. It is easier for the audience to listen, easier for them to think, easier for them to be moved once they laugh. Indeed, however disturbing Beckett may be, there is always a laugh round the corner.

I directed the English world premiere of this great play exactly 50 years ago and I was there on that tumultuous first night. I was 24 years old and I suspect landed the play because no one else would do it. It had been turned down by most of the acting profession, including Gielgud, Richardson and Guinness. And it was rejected by directors without number. I still wake up wondering what would have become of my life if I had turned it down. It changed everything.

It is often thought that 1956 and the first night of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger began the reinvention of British theatre. To an extent this is true. But Godot was possibly a greater influence. It is certainly true that Osborne inspired a generation of young writers.

All this was wonderful, but his play was nonetheless faintly parochial and old-fashioned in technique, which Godot certainly was not. Look Back in Anger was a play formed by the careful naturalism of the 30s and the craft beloved by the old repertory theatres. It now looks dated and prolix because it uses the convention of the old well-made play. I think that my generation heard more political revolution in it than was actually there - largely because we desperately needed to.

By contrast, Waiting for Godot hasn't dated at all. It remains a masterpiece transcending all barriers and all nationalities. And it could have been written today: there is nothing of the 50s about it. It is the start of modern drama and it gave the theatre back its metaphorical power.

Godot challenged and then removed 100 years of literal naturalism where a room could only be considered a room if it was presented in full detail with the fourth wall removed. Godot provided an empty stage, with a tree and two figures who waited each day and yet had to survive.

Godot no longer seems obscure. The worshippers at our first preview in Bath were the exception, not the rule, and subsequent performances have been laced with laughter and understanding.

This is the fourth time that I have directed the play and I'm often asked how the productions have differed. I don't know. A production is created by a group of actors and a director making an honest response to a play at a certain time in a certain place. It differs and should differ. Godot becomes clearer by the year and less "absurdist" - the convenient label which tagged its initial mysteries.

From that August evening in London 50 years ago, the play went round the world and its success continues.

When in 1955 the play transferred to the Criterion (a public theatre governed by the licensing authorities), the lord chamberlain - censor of the day - busily exercised his blue pencil. Beckett was amazed that in England, the cradle of free speech, the theatre - unlike books or broadcasting or film - was heavily censored by the government.

The lord chamberlain was very disturbed by the word "erection" and insisted it be removed. There were several attempts to ban the play altogether. A letter from Lady Dorothy Howitt was recently released under the Freedom of Information Act. It asked the lord chamberlain to ban the play: "One of the many themes running through the play is the desire of two old tramps continually to relieve themselves. Such a dramatisation of lavatory necessities is offensive and against all sense of British decency."

Controversy still haunts Beckett and Godot. It saddens me greatly that both the Royal Court Theatre and my own company are, from the beginning of September, prevented by the Barbican Centre and the Gate Theatre, Dublin, from giving performances of any plays by Beckett in London in the foreseeable future.

At a time when Sam should be universally celebrated as his centenary approaches, they have all the rights in the plays for their own big Beckett centenary festival in April next year and insist on this moratorium. So no one else may celebrate Sam's life and work in London from next week onwards. Sam would have found such a situation very whimsical.

· Peter Hall is a theatre, opera and film director; the Peter Hall Company is resident at the Theatre Royal, Bath, until September 3